HOLIDAY PAY

Greymouth Evening Star, 10 December 1937, Page 3

HOLIDAY PAY

EMPLOYERS’ FEDERATION.

[PER PRESS ASSOCIATION.]

WELLINGTON, December 9.

The. recent interpretation, by the Court of Arbitration of the Factories Act regarding holiday payments has been the subject of inquiry by the Advisory Board of the New Zealand Employers’ Federation, which has issued the-following statement: — “This interpretation requires that factory workers, if employed at any time in'a fortnight ending on a day of holiday, must be paid, for Christmas Day, which, falls on Saturday, and for Boxing Day, which falls on Sunday, in addition to their week’s wages. We believe this was not- the intention of Parliament when the law was passed and that it is probably not even a correct interpretation of the law as it stands.. We have therefore approached the Government and asked that the original intention of the legislation, as we understood it in 1936 and as expressed by the Department of Labour subsequently, bo given full effect to. “This intention is clearly expressed in the following extract from an official letter of the Department of Labour, written before the interpretation by the Court: ‘When a holiday occurs on a Saturday, the department does not insist on payment being made to regular hands whose employment is from Monday to Friday in each week, so long as in each week the worker receives his full week’s wages. We consider the act has been complied with and that it is not necessary to pay him .an extra day’s wages merely by reason of the fact that a holiday in that particular instance, as for example Boxing Day last, occurs on a Saturday.’ We also hope to have an opportunity of obtaining an interpretation of the law from the Supreme Court. “Pending a final decision of the question, the Advisory Board recommends all employers to withhold payment, this action to be entirely without prejudice, to any rights the workers may ultimately be decided to have and which, in respect of Boxing Day, 1936, might be affected by the effluxion of time. The board wishes it to be clearly understood that the recommendation is only that payment be deferred until the position has been finally cleared up. If the result is a confirmation, no workers should be prejudiced us to their right to payment through any technical advantage which might accrue to the employers because of delay.”